Too many stuff for your home? Need more storage space? Don’t worry, you are not alone. I live in a town house with no back yard nor basement. I do have a flexible room on the ground floor, but it’s taken by my Ping-Pong table. The square footage of my town house is decent, but I still felt like I needed more storage space for my tools, shoes, outdoor gears, etc. So, I built a storage shelf on the back side dry wall of my garage. The dimension of the shelf is 205 cm height, 197 cm width, and 38 cm depth. There won’t be a problem for parking a regular size car or SUV in the garage. My garage is 5.9 m (19.2 feet) deep, so after installing the shelf on the back side wall, I still have 5.5 m (18 feet) depth for my 4.3 m (14 feet) long Ford Focus, which is more than good enough.
Materials (all can be bought from HomeDepot):
SPF 2x3x96 SPF Premium Stud, CA$2.18 each, 10 pieces.
PROGUARD 1x6x8 Treated Wood Fence Board, CA$4.80 each, 10 pieces.
SPF 1x2x8 Framing Lumber, CA$ 1.66 each, 3 pieces.
8×3 Flat Hd Soc Wood Screw 100/Bx, CA$12.77 each box, 1 box.
ZMAX 18-Gauge Galvanized Steel Angle, CA$0.52 each, 5 pieces.
Total material cost = CA$90.15.
Tools:
Drill, screw bits, and drill bits (if you want to use drywall anchor).
If you don’t screw the right angle brackets on studs in the wall, you may consider getting a set of screw and plug (FIXA 260-piece screw and plug set) for CA$7.99 from IKEA.
So, here’s the design as shown in the picture below:
Step 1: cut 36 cm (14 in) off one piece of 2x3x96 stud. Do the same thing for another 5 pieces of studs. Then you get 6 pieces of studs 207 cm (81 inch) long, which will be used for the verticals. In addition, you get 6 pieces of studs 36 cm (14 in) long, and these will be used for the horizontals on the two narrow sides (left and right).
Step 2: Cut 46 cm (18 in) off one piece of 2x3x96 stud. Repeat this step for another 3 pieces of studs. Now you have 4 pieces of studs 198 cm (78 in) long, which are for the main horizontals on the front and back sides.
Step 3: Assemble the main frame (6 verticals (207 cm high) and 4 horizontals (198 cm long)). I put the horizontals in between the verticals, which makes it easier to fix the shelves onto the wall, using right angle brackets and drywall anchors, to make the shelves more stable. To put the studs together, I simply drill two wood screws into each joint.
Step 4: Install the board supports using a drill and some screws at spots marked in the picture shown above. Each board support is 38 cm (15 inch) long. These supports are cut from the framing lumber mentioned above.
Step 5: Cut the treated wood fence boards to 198 cm (78 inch) long. Each level requires two pieces of boards. Screw the boards onto the board supports installed in Step 4.
Now we have the home custom made shelves. I hope you enjoyed reading the instructions. Feel free to let me know any questions or comments. Thank you 🙂